Meet John
by mywildimagination
Summary: A good laugh about post-LO Camp Half-Blood from the point of view of an aspiring hero. He's, well, let's face it, an idiot. Take pity on him. Warning: spoiler for Mortal's Fear.


A bit of history, which usually puts me to sleep. But this is _my_ history, so it's easier to stay awake.

There have been great heroes since the dawn of western civilization. Hercules is the first that pops to mind. Then there's Theseus and Perseus. Another famous one is Aeneas.

Aeneas's mom was Aphrodite. Is that hard to believe? I don't think so. If she didn't have her own power, how did she end up being one of the top twelve Olympians? How did Aeneas get so famous and even have an epic poem named after him?

Aphrodite is great, but everyone else brushes her aside. There's the Big Three, oh, and there are the other great gods, and then there's Aphrodite, the little girl that just popped out of the sea and put her feet up at Olympus. Her children are hair-styling, makeup-absorbed, shallow souls. Too weak for anyone to care about. Too weak to give them attention, threaten, or trust them with anything. Ha!

I will be proof of the fact that you can't brush aside great power for long! I will show everyone that we, Aphrodite and her children, are great!

I am John Arrison of South Carolina, and I'm fourteen years old.

* * *

Archery is my favorite sport. Whap, whap, whap! Bullseye, bullseye, bulleye. Hold your applause, thank you.

Little newbies barely out of the Hermes cabin gaped at me. I smirked at them. _Keep working, kiddies,_ I gloated inwardly. _You've just met the next great hero._

I kept up my practice, until this Mexican kid started to whine at me.

"Dude, are you going to keep showing off or can I have a turn?"

"Shut your face before you lose it."

"Make me."

He had such an impish expression. Man, this punk was asking for it.

I gave him an angry glare and roll my eyes. The last time I got into a fight with another kid, I got my dessert priveledges taken away. And this kid wasn't worth it. I just didn't feel like going to all the trouble while there was still time to practice.

I frowned at the huge amounts of people waiting at each target, which littered the field. It would be too long a wait, even at the shortest line, to get any more shots in before we had to switch activities. Ugh. Ever since the New Oath, there'd been too many people that needed to be taken care of. Every new kid just took up five minutes of already-tight slots.

So I should have beaten up that imp while I had the chance.

I looked back to the target I'd been stationed at. The kid was pathetic. The arrows he shot barely made the target, and most of them had gone astray, to the annoyance of crowded archers.

This was going to be fun.

I casually moved to a point just outside his peripheral vision, and grabbed a few pebbles on the way. I was just in range.

The kid was arching his bow, concentrating and probably praying to the gods that he might get a bullseye. I readied a pebble. As he shot, I threw it in the arrow's path, making it change direction.

It was a bullseye - on the adjacent target.

The kid gaped in shock, nearly dropping his bow. He probably never had made a bullseye before, or even close, until now.

The archer next to him turned with a baffled expression. "Was that you?" he called to the kid.

The kid muttered something, looking dazed and dorky.

I grinned. This was just too precious.

The other archer walked over from his target to the kid's, and around then the kid raised a trembling bow.

Again, he shot an arrow and I changed its direction. It hit the adjacent target again, but in the outer areas.

The other archer got bored with the freak happenstance and went back to his station.

Just then, the kid met my eyes with a burning glare. He knew something was going on.

But he turned back to the target for one last shot.

This time, his arrow flew nowhere near the next one. It hit someone in the crowd.

Now the kid fully understood what was going on. He threw down his bow and stomped over to me, looking murderous. I grinned and stretched out.

Sizing him up, he didn't seem too hard to beat. He was probably two-thirds my weight and a bit shorter than me. I suddenly remembered when he came to camp last year. He and his two friends were the last ones before the war. I'd already been at camp three years then. This thing was in the bag.

"What the HADES was that for?"

"You're a wimp," I said. "You call that archery?"

"Your mom's a wimp."

Thunder cracked.

Looking up at the peaceful, sunny blue sky, I said angrily, "Do you know who my mother _is_, you minor god spawn?"

"Does it look like I care?"

What an idiot! He either had no idea what happened when you insulted a god, or he had a death wish. I balled my hands into fists.

"Are you kidding? She can feed knuckle sandwiches to you like nectar. Like I'm going to do right now."

He also got ready to fight. "You can try."

I was in mid-punch when something hit me full on the face. I realized it was an arrow.

* * *

My eyes peeled to discover Camp Half-Blood gone way upstairs. People were drawing swords in combat, shooting each other with arrows, and employing the good ol' one-two.

I was looking for two people, that Mexican kid, because I wasn't finished with him yet, and my sister, whichever I found first. Abby wasn't that hard to find, because she was always sitting around with some of our other sisters, doing hair or nails.

A few things about Abby, before you meet her: she's blonde, like me, and has green eyes, which she likes to cover with blue contacts whenever she can. We don't only have the same mom, but the same dad, too. She looks older than she is, so everyone thinks she's my age, but she's really two years younger.

At the moment, she was sitting under some random tree with what was probably one of Demeter's kids (she had a flower chain around her head and a few on her wrists) and a couple of our sisters.

"Did you see Brenda . . . yeah, I barely recognized her . . . she was such a fat cow . . ."

It was as if they hadn't even noticed that Hades had just broken loose.

"Abby! _Abby_ . . . ABBY!"

I finally had her attention. "Oh, hi, John," she said, perfecting her left index nail. "I finally found the right color nail polish to go with that tank I got last week."

"Yeah, I'm so happy for you. What the Hades is going on?"

The flower child answered instead. "Some guy shot an arrow at you because one of Diego's accidentally hit him. That's how this chaos got started." She closed her eyes. "But I'm a pacifist. I don't like to fight. Unless I have to defend myself."

"Diego . . ." I mused, ignoring her little rant about pacifism. "Isn't he that Mexican kid?"

Flower Girl's expression went sour. "How racist!"

I ignored her again. "Thanks, Abby," I said, though she'd done nothing at all.

"Whatever, John . . . oh my gods, is that a _zit_?"

I left her shrieking in terror to find that kid.

* * *

He was with a couple of Hermes kids, taking the opportunity to pickpocket anyone and everyone. I put my hand in my pocket to make sure my wallet was still there. Rats.

"Hey, Diego," I called pugnaciously, "I'm not done with you yet!"

"Hades, yeah," he called back. "You're toast!"

Just as I was about to hit him, and hard, a grape vine pulled me back. Suddenly, everyone was tripping over roots and getting splattered in grape juice.

"And just who," growled Dionysus, "is responsible for this mess?"

* * *

**_Yes, Diego is from my other fanfic, Mortal's Fear. Anyway, please review!_**


End file.
